


What We Are Made To Bear

by someillplanetreigns



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Awesome Jane Foster, I need Wanda and Thor to bond OK, Jane is great grief support to Thor, Thor is grief support for Wanda, sibling grief, trying to fix how quickly canon brushes over grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 04:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someillplanetreigns/pseuds/someillplanetreigns
Summary: The experience of losing a brother is not contained in a single tear-stained, wailing close-up. Thor, Wanda, even Loki, deserved something more than what they were given. So I tried to give it to them.“People are obsessed with saying we’re ‘bad at talking about grief’, but what they actually mean by that is we’re bad at listening to others talk about grief.”





	What We Are Made To Bear

**Author's Note:**

> I've been frustrated for quite a while that sibling grief has not been very well portrayed in the canon, so I've tried to flesh out scenes or add a very minor canon divergence here to allow room for it. There's a pretty strong chance that this could get a sequel, because I'm really just scratching the surface here, but it felt complete as a fic. There a strong CN for death and grief: it touches on a lot of types of grief, but the focus is on sibling grief, in part I guess because I sort of needed to write this for me - I hope you enjoy it though! I meant for my first fanfic to be something lighter, but apparently that didn't work out haha... Feedback would be really appreciated, at the very least to tell me I wasn't just being self-indulgent writing this!

I

Thor lay facing Jane on her bed, their joined hands resting on the mattress in the narrow space between them. His eyes were focussed on her small fingers interlaced with his own large, calloused ones. It had been a beautiful moment, his emergence from the Bifrost’s light into her eager embrace, the kind of moment recounted at great gatherings for centuries afterwards. He knew what he should have wanted when they were alone, knew what the heroes of one of those tales would have done, but all he found himself able to do was cling to her, to desperately reassure himself that she, at least, was there, was real, was present, was _alive_.

“They saved my life,” she murmured. “Both of them.”

She knew exactly where his thoughts were, it seemed. Perhaps because hers were there too.

He wanted to say something, but did not know how, or even quite what. _You never were good with words, brother._

“I’m sorry,” she almost whispered.

His confusion caused him to break his silence, but his voice was hoarse when he spoke: “For what?”

“If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t needed saving...”

Thor shook his head. “Malekith’s monster killed her. Not you. She kept the Aether from Malekith, and she saved you. I am grateful, though her death pains me more than I could ever say. And it was _me_ that Loki died saving.”

“And you blame yourself for that.”

Jane, Thor had to acknowledge, could be remarkably like his mother at times.

“Not just for that.”

She waited, her little thumb gently stroking the back of his hand, but he said no more.

“It’s fine if you want to talk about it. Probably good to talk about it.”

He drew in a breath. “On Asgard we are... not accustomed to discussing our emotions in any depth.”

“Not sure we’re much better on Earth. Especially with this. People are obsessed with saying we’re ‘bad at talking about grief’, but what they actually mean by that is we’re bad at listening to others talk about grief. I’d imagine it’s the same deal wherever you are in the universe. But if you want to talk, I promise I’ll listen.”

He vowed to ask he about her own loss in the morning. For now, he murmured, “Thank you,” and rubbed the back of her hand in turn.

He swallowed.

“When... when he fell – jumped – from the Bifrost... I couldn’t believe it.” It was a faltering start, but she looked at him steadily, so he continued, “Not just in the moment, but for months. Right up to the point when Mother said he was on Midgard, I hadn’t really believed he was gone. Not because I thought it was one of his schemes, but simply because it didn’t seem possible. He was so unlike himself in that time... Sometimes I thought it couldn’t have been him at all. Sometimes I’d... I’d just expect him to be there. I’d lie awake at night and feel that he must be sleeping in the neighbouring wing, where he’d always been... I don’t think I’d even processed that it was real by the time Mother told us it was not, that he was alive, that he was in danger, that he needed me... I had watched him let go, watched him fall, I did know, of course, but... it never sunk in. I kept waiting for him to return. And then he was there, ready for me to bring him home.”

There were a lot of things that could have been said about Loki’s re-emergence, but he was grateful that Jane simply moved to give him her other hand to hold so she could wrap her arm around him.

“I blamed myself then, too,” he continued, though his voice sounded odd to him. “He told me all he wanted was to be my equal, that that was why he did it. There was so much pain in him... Always, in that time that I believed him dead, I wished I had done otherwise. But I never knew quite what or how. And then when we learnt he was in fact alive... I was so angry, so hurt... It was hard to see his actions as in proportion to his suffering... And he would not stop. I longed for my brother, but he kept denying he was so... I found it hard to face his rage, to face what he seemed to have become – I suppose because it was hard to face the pain that I felt I had had such a hand in inflicting.

“I did not visit him in prison. I told myself I was too busy saving the nine realms – sometimes that was true; sometimes it was an excuse. Now I wish I had gone to him. But still I was angry. Angry that he would throw me off when I had loved him so much. Angry that he so vehemently insisted he was not my brother. Angry that now I could hardly recognise him as my brother. Angry at him, angry at myself. Anger was one of the emotions I knew how to feel well.

“But then... he was himself, Jane.” He fully focussed on her for the first time, looking to her for corroboration. “His performance, his forethought, his trickery, even, and his courage, his loyalty, his – his sacrifice. That was Loki. That was my brother. And for so brief a moment before he... before...” He swallowed. “I blame myself for giving up on him. He ought not have needed to _die_ for me to recognise him again. I think back on that moment over and over, the moment the beast pierced him... He knew. It was his plan. Loki’s last scheme. He knew exactly how to kill it, knew how to get close enough... And he judged it worth it.”

“You’ve willingly sacrificed yourself for others,” she murmured. She was not refuting anything he’d said, simply contributing it. “You didn’t know the hammer would come when the Destroyer hit you.”

“It would appear to be a trait that runs in our family.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and went on, “I hope that wasn’t why he did it. Unable to be seen as my equal in life, he would have it in death... It’s what hurts me most about the way I find myself speaking of him. That his death was so noble, some redemptive action... I would not have him redeemed by his death, but that seems to be how the words arrange themselves... I fear that that is how he saw it.”

Jane, he knew, was biting back a comment about Asgardian culture. A very well-deserved one, he felt in that moment.

He was no longer sure what point he had started with any more than where he was going. There was a dampness in his hair from where stray tears had rolled across his cheek. He hadn’t noticed.

“I failed him,” he murmured. “I feel as though I still am. Failing him. I grieve my mother, feel many of the same or related emotions about her death – sometimes, in fact, they are hard to separate – but the sense of failure with Loki is overwhelming. In an instant, I lost the mother I had always known. But my brother I lost over time, then found him, in the briefest, brightest moment, and lost him again, forever. And that was my fault. I should never have abandoned him. He was always my brother, and I never should have believed him when he said he wasn’t. I never should have renounced him.”

Here Jane looked like she was about to say something, that she’d try to reassure him, and he wasn’t ready for that, so he hurried on: “And now he’s dead.” He could say the words, but they did not feel real, as though he spoke a lie with none of Loki’s skill. “And still it does not feel real. My mother, too. My mind is full of their deaths, and yet still I cannot feel it, it still seems wholly wrong... I thought I would feel better, avenging them. It focussed me, pursuing Malekith, first after Mother’s death, then Loki’s, but now... now it is just an emptiness, as though it made no difference at all.”

“The determination was keeping you going,” she said softly, and he knew, again, she was speaking from experience. “Killing Malekith wasn’t to fix how you feel; concentrating on killing him was to get you through the initial anguish.”

He pressed his nose into her hair. “And now? What now?”

“I don’t know, exactly.” Her breath was warm on his neck. So alive. “Tell me about them? A funny story. A happy memory.”

His voice gave out before he was done talking.

Jane told him there were more nights.

He had never loved her more.

 

II

Court was cancelled in Asgard after Heimdall informed the Allfather of Thor’s conversations with Jane.

He grieves for the Queen, they said.

A few suggested he also grieved for Loki. Perhaps, they were generously told.  

Safe to wear his own countenance in his chambers, Loki did weep for the loss of Frigga. And for the loss of Thor. And for his own loss. And that he must grieve alone.

 

III

When Wanda and Pietro had eventually been pulled from the broken shell of what had been their family home, people had stared. The orphaned twins had been a freak show to be ogled at, a short-lived media sensation – not because anyone truly cared, they had known that even then, but because cute kids sold papers. Their grief had been sold on the market, and it had been consumed. 

Now Wanda stared everyone else down, forced them to lower their gaze. Her grief, this time, was not palatable to consumers. Her grief now did not leave her one half of an adorable, wide-eyed, trembling pair as the loss of her parents had done; her grief now had torn metal to shreds. Her grief was terrible, awful, the stuff of nightmares. _As it should be._

Tears rolled freely down her sullied face, carving grooves there. Her legs shook as she walked, but she walked nonetheless, shaking off the Vision.

She found him where she knew he’d be, laid out on the metal floor of the boat.

Barton sat above him, like one of those statues of angels the Catholics had had over their tomb effigies in Sokovia, before all the destruction. The archer sprang up when he saw her, his usual grace muted.

“No,” he murmured, trying to put an arm around her, as though to shield her from seeing her own brother.

“Let go of me.” Her voice was terrible. _As it should be._ “I will go to him.”

She knew he wanted to say something but could not find the words. _There are no words._ He looked so broken. _Everything should be broken_. He did remove his arm, but left a hand on her shoulder.

“Let her go to him, Barton.”

She had not expected him. The tallest of the men, the one with the long blond hair and the hammer. Thor. She had barely communicated with him, didn’t know why he was the one intervening. Of any of them, she had expected the man in blue, Captain America, but he stood off to the side, his head lowered. It was a gesture of respect, but she also knew where his thoughts were – _when_ his thoughts were. Stark, whom she thought she still hated, but dumbly now, without any fire left, stood further off, slack-jawed, seemingly reliant on the iron suit to hold him up. It was the god-man who challenged the archer.

“She wants to go to him. Let her. She knows what she needs.”

Barton looked at Thor for a long moment, then nodded slowly and let go of Wanda.

She came down to her knees again, this time beside him. There was a rasping sound, and for a wild moment she thought he was breathing, that they were wrong, he lived he lived he... But then the realisation hit into her like the shell had crashed into their home: it was her. The sound was her, saying his name, over and over and over.

She touched his cheek. He was already cold. Her crying was worse now, harder, racking through her, causing her whole body to convulse and her power to thrum around her as an aura. His name still fell from her lips in a broken, hopeless incantation.

Thor came to kneel beside her. She did not look at him. She didn’t bother to look into his mind – _if she could not feel Pietro’s mind she did not want to feel any –_ and she was sure he was going to make some asinine remark about the nobility of her brother’s sacrifice.

“He’s still your brother. You’re still his sister.”

She turned slightly to Thor in her surprise, but not looking away from Pietro. Her sobs quieted to fevered shake once more. “What?”

“When you wonder where this leaves you, an only child where you hadn’t been before – he is still your brother. No matter what.”

Something stirred in Wanda, around the edges of the consuming pain and shock and horror. She felt Thor’s mind exuding... it could not be called empathy, because so inherent in the emotion was his awareness that he could never know the depth of what she felt, his own experience of its depth had taught him that, but she knew no closer word in any of her languages.

“He’s dead,” she whispered in her mother tongue, her hand reaching for Pietro’s, though it was cold now. “He is dead.”

“Yes,” he replied, in the same language. “I am so sorry.”

“It will never stop hurting.” It was not a fear; it was a promise.

“No,” he agreed, “it never will. I believe that with time, we learn to bear the pain, but I, for one, hope for no more than that.”

“How can it be borne?” She was still whispering in her language – _their_ language – still held Pietro’s limp hand.

His voice spoke of agony capable of bringing a god to his knees. It spoke to her. She saw his grip tighten on the hammer.

“It is a myth that the unbearable cannot be borne.”     


End file.
